JOSEPHINE--I'll do the girl so much justice at last--was running to and fro, upstairs and downstairs--and putting the house, from one end to the other, in a ferment. At last the landlady desired her to be quiet, and not go about making noise enough to tear people out of their beds. If all the world was gone out to be shot, that was no reason why their house should be ruined! Well, I won't attempt to describe the two hours I suffered! How, sometimes, I thought I'd have a horse and go galloping anywhere, everywhere. "It's all over, Ma'am!"--cried JOSEPHINE, running in. "Over!" and I saw death in the girl's face. "Over, Ma'am. They fired two shots, Ma'am--two a-piece--they say, and"-- "Yes--yes"-- "And master"-- "Killed!"--I screamed. "No, Ma'am! Quite the reverse!"-- (How I thanked the girl for the words, though where _could_ she have picked 'em up?) "He has not killed his--I mean the--other gentleman?"-- "No, Ma'am, totally the contrary. Nobody's hit--not so much as winged, though what that means I can't say--only I heard one of the men say as much. But all of 'em in custody." "What now? Why, what for?--" "Why, Ma'am, as I hear, for every one of the gentlemen to be bound over to keep his peace for the rest of his born days! And la! bless me--how ill you turn, Ma'am, and when it's all over?" "Not at all, JOSEPHINE. I'm very well, now: very well, indeed," and then rose my determination. Yes, I'd go home that very day. "JOSEPHINE, pack up as much as you can. Your master shall go home, I'll take care of _that_ directly." "That's right, Ma'am. Now you've got him safe and sound once more, you couldn't do better, Ma'am. And for MR. TRUEPENNY"-- Well, his very name set me in a flame. "MR. TRUEPENNY! He never crosses _my_ threshold! A very pretty friend indeed, to come and lure a man--a newly-married man"-- "Not married a month yet, quite, Ma'am," said JOSEPHINE, "which makes it hard."-- "And take him out, I may say, in cold blood"-- "Which makes it ten times wickeder," said JOSEPHINE. "And butcher him like a lamb," said I. "Exactly like a lamb, Ma'am," cried the girl. "Only there is this difference, Ma'am: you know master isn't a bit hurt." "That has nothing to do with it. He might have been killed, and what would MR. TRUEPENNY have cared? No! I might have been left a wretched widow!" "And much MR. TRUEPENNY would have helped you then, Ma'am," said the good girl. "No, he never crosses the _Flitch_--never: and that I shall tell your master. The foolish, dear fellow! How I will scold him." "Do, Ma'am; he deserves it all. To go fighting and--and after all, do you know for a certainty what he went fighting about?"-- "Folly, madness, of course," said I. "Jealous of"-- "Well, I thought so!" cried JOSEPHINE, with a strange knowing look. "I thought as much. Jealous, and of you, too, above all folks! And in your Honeymoon, too. Well, I'm sure; as if there wasn't time enough for that!"